The Wizard of Oz is a magical film.  Ostensibly a children’s movie, it’s filled with little “morality plays” about good versus evil, the use of power, family, friendship, and the choices we all make.

To me, it boils down to The Scarecrow or the Tin Man.  One wants to be smart; the other wants a heart: Brains versus Emotions.

When you think about it, the Scarecrow stands out in our minds because of what we felt about him BEFORE he got brains.  The Tin Woodsman cried (which rusted him up, and made him creaky), and as children watching it, we all cried.  The lesson: There’s certainly nothing wrong with Smart, but Heart matters more.

Remember this the next time you open the mic.  If you’ve left your heart out of the equation, you’ve missed the boat.  If I listen for an hour, and don’t learn something about how you FEEL, that was a wasted hour.

With the way the so-called “News” is going nowadays, the easiest thing to do is to simply bring a subject up, then mock it or put a cheap punch line at the end.

But here’s the thing… radio – in ALL formats – owes the listener more than that.  We’re primarily here to inform, entertain, or both.  But I hear music formats that sound lifeless, Imaging in some formats that seems to be sneering in their delivery, “Content” that’s just celebrity gossip flotsam and jetsam, and Talk Radio shows that are just “adopting a posture” and spouting the same one-sided opinions every day.

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Here’s a little tidbit I heard and wrote about years ago, but it bears revisiting.

The story is that Steve Jobs, in an Apple “think tank” meeting, challenged everyone with three questions:

• What would be cool?
• What would be fun?
• What would benefit the life of the customer?

If you want a real “mission statement,” that’s it.  And it directly applies to radio.  If we’re always thinking “What would be cool?”  “What would be fun?” and “What would benefit the life of the listener?” we can’t go wrong.

I would back this up with three questions of my own:

• Does your station even think about this?
• If not, why not?
• And how long do you want to totally miss the whole point of even HAVING a radio station in the first place?

As you develop your storytelling skills, be wary of getting too far off the subject.

I recall a Yankees vs. Twins baseball game a couple of seasons ago.  The difference between the Yankees broadcast team (all of whom are excellent) and the Minnesota Twins broadcasters was never more evident than when a Twins announcer – during an inning – talked ad nauseum to a lady with a bird refuge. ???

I was dumbfounded.  It served no purpose whatsoever.  A way off target “human interest” interview that went nowhere and had me shouting at the TV.  The only thing I could think to ask her that would have been relevant to baseball is “Remember when Randy Johnson exploded that seagull?”

(You Tube it if you haven’t seen it.)